F&F
RABOBANK
SPONSORS CEJA
RNA acquires Napa Community Bank
Americas
Europe
RI IN THE NEWS
Just the facts figures
FrieslandCampina
TomTom
Royal BAM Group
In 2009, Rabobank advised a broad
range of Wholesale clients on financing
transactions. Three successful deals
in the Netherlands:
Transaction
Providing EUR 50 million liquidity
for member bonds and guaranteeing
theirtradeability
Friesland Food and Campina merged in
2008. It was crucial to obtain the trust
of their members for this conversion
to succeed. Rabobank guaranteed the
liquidity of the new member bonds
by means of a EUR 50 million facility.
Rabobank has established an internal
market on which member bonds can
be traded six times a year. Rabobank's
role in facilitating this internal market
and guaranteeing the tradeability of
the member bonds helped them to
gain acceptance.
Transaction
EUR 359 million rights offering
TomTom and its lenders agreed on
amendments to the terms of TomTom's
facility agreement to provide TomTom
greater headroom under its financial
covenants. Rabo Securities together
with Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs,
ING and RBS acted as global coördina
tor, joint bookrunner and underwriter
in the EUR 359 million rights offering.
The net proceeds of the equity offering
are applied towards debt reduction.
Transaction
Syndicated credit facility
The development of Royal BAM Group
has progressed via numerous acquisi-
tions. Following the assumption of
full ownership of Terra Amstel, BAM
decided to refinance the Terra Amstel
Facilities to BAM Group level. In 2009,
Rabobank acted as coördinator of a
syndicated credit facility for BAM.To
allow the refïnancing, approval had to be
given by an extensive number of lenders
of existing financing arrangements.
6 issue 23 RI WORLD
Rabobank, N.A. has agreed to acquire Napa
Community Bank, a USD 163 million, full-service
community bank located in the city of Napa, in
the heart of California wine country. The bank
offers a full range of retail financial services and
its board of directors is composed of local com
munity and civic leaders from the Napa Valley.
The transaction, which is subject to approval
by shareholders and regulators, is expected
to close in the middleof2010, and continues
RNA's expansion within California. 'This acquisi-
tion will provide us with a high profile position
in a valuable agricultural region. It also brings
us excellent management talent, valuable
customer relationships, a sound and quality
loan portfolio, and a strong deposit base,"
Ronald Blok, CEO of Rabobank, N.A., said.
The Napa Community Bank acquisition will give
Rabobank an established branch to anchor its
growing wine country business and to provide
full-service banking to meet the expectations
of its wine country customers and prospects.
Rabobank as a whole already has a lending
portfolio of approximately USD 500 million in
Napa and Sonoma counties.
'The transaction brings benefits for customers
as well. Rabobank customers will soon have an
additional location in popular Napa Valley from
which to conduct their banking. Meanwhile,
once Napa Community customers become
Rabobank customers, they will enjoy much more
banking convenience from our more than 100
locations, and access to greater capital resources
than they currently have," Ronald Blok said.
c
NAPA
COMMUNITY
BANK
At the end of 2009, Rabobank signed an initial one-year sponsorship agreement with the
European Council of Young Farmers (CEJA). "We are delighted to be the sponsor of CEJA,
an organisation that represents the next generation of European food producers," said
Caroline Steenvoort, from RI's Rural Retail Banking Business Development unit responsible
for products branding.* "Our partnership with CEJA links us to an important stakeholder and
sparring partner in the European F&A sector. It will help us further in understanding our clients'
needs, and generate more brand awareness throughout the region."
"Besides the exchange of knowledge, visions on agriculture in Europe and affiliated themes like
CSR, we are keen to be involved in CEJA's meetings - in markets that are relevant for our organi
sation. For instance, we aim to organise an event in Poland this year and we are joining forces
with BGZ and CEJA to organise this," Caroline said. "For BGZ it is an
important initiative to create direct contacts between the new a, a,
generation farmers and our organisation," adds Flem Mulders,
who took over part of Caroline's activities within RI R&R Business p» 4
Development.
For more information about similar partnership agreements, visit:
www.rabobank.com/content/food agri/proofofperformance
As of March 1Caroline was appointed Sipko Schat's Strategie Advisor